During a conference call with financial analysts, Kelly King, BB&T's chairman and chief executive officer, says the bank is not sitting on its hands and complaining about the state of the economy. Instead, it is taking active measures to increase revenue. Among the initiatives, he mentioned the Crump acquisition, calling it “a huge opportunity” in a number of areas.

One area will be providing life-insurance services to other large banks and financial-services companies that find doing that business in-house too complex.

“Frankly, it has gone extraordinarily well and it is a huge opportunity for us,” says King.

With the acquisition of Crump, insurance now makes up 14 percent of overall revenue for BB&T.

BB&T Corp. reports fourth quarter net income of $549 million, an increase of 37 percent from $400 million for the prior year. Total revenue rose 5 percent, or $122 million, to $2.5 billion.

For the year, net income rose 52 percent, or $696 million, to $2.03 billion. Revenues for the year stand at approximately $9.8 billion, up 13 percent, or over $1 billion.

When asked about the future performance of the insurance segment, Christopher L. Henson, chief operation officer, was highly optimistic of continued organic growth for the next three to five years.

He says that unlike a hard market, with rapid increase in premiums, pricing in the current insurance market is in a “slower migration.”

Organic growth will continue to improve as prices increase, the economy improves, and the need for Crump services grow. He also expects more cross selling internally to the bank's clients and increases in contingent commissions.

“We think '13 will be really challenging, but our businesses are really performing and so, given the economy, we believe we will have another high-performance year in 2013,” says King.